54 posts from August 2007

August 31, 2007

The Baltimore Jewish Times Phil Jacobs reports the following. Material within square brackets is mine or is sufficiently expanded from Phil Jacobs' report to warrant notice:

As pressure from Jewish blogs, primarily UOJ, in the summer of 2006 combined with pressure from alleged victims of Ner Israel's Rabbi Moshe Eisemann led to an investigation into Rabbi Eisemann's conduct.

Rabbi Yakov Hopfer did the investigation.

Allegations against Rabbi Eisemann were found credible.

A source close to Ner Israel leadership told Phil Jacobs that Rabbi Eisemann admitted some of the allegations like kissing and (prolonged) back rubbing.

Rabbi Eisemann was forced to retire.

He was forced to undergo 'counseling' from a professional linked to Ner Israel.

He was allowed to continue living on the Ner Israel campus, but not to teach students.

Why? So the rabbis could "keep an eye on him."

Rabbi Eisemann told the Jewish Times that he was still "seeing students" and denied he was forced to retire.

Rabbi Hopfer refused to answer questions.

Ner Israel released a statement that seems to have been drafted by its legal counsel. In part, it says, "…Given the sensitivity and nature of the subject, and the Yeshiva’s concern for all involved, both claimant and accused, it is the policy of the Yeshiva to refrain from discussing or commenting on these matters."

Yet, a letter signed by Baltimore's Orthodox rabbis in April of this year seems to be saying that publicity is necessary to help safeguard children from abusers.

Just before publication, Rabbi Eisemann admitted that he no longer taught at Ner Israel saying that he had, in fact, "voluntarily retired" in 2006 [although it appears that he is indeed still seeing students, now in the privacy of his campus home].

During this process, a blogger went to Gary Rosenblatt of the NY Jewish Week with details of the abuse, asking for advice help in getting Rabbi Eisemann away from kids. Rosenblatt did nothing. He tells Phil Jacobs today that he remembers an "anonymous" telephone call and no more. [But Rosenblatt, who exposed Rabbi Baruch Lanner's abuse, which is why the blogger went to him, covered up other abuse allegations – ike Rabbi Modechai Gafni's repeated abuse – and covered up for the rabbis who covered for Rabbi Gafni. And, in other cases, it is alleged that Rosenblatt simply turned a blind eye. His behavior here seems to lead credence to the idea that Rosenblatt is corrupt, and that his pursuit of Rabbi Lanner and the OU, even though justified and indeed morally mandated – was primarily done to settle private scores.]

Phil Jacobs interviews a former student of Rabbi Eisemann who testifies to Rabbi Eisemann's bizarre behavior, including Rabbi Eisemann's habit of staring at the crotches of his students and patting and rubbing their buttocks.

Ner Israel rosh yeshiva Rabbi Ahron Feldman wrote a glowing endorsement for a book Rabbi Eisemann wrote. The book was published in 2007, after Rabbi Eisemannn's behavior was known to Rabbi Feldman.

[The letter from the Baltimore rabbis on child sexual abuse tells Jews to go to the "authorities" to have the abuse dealt with.]

[At the time that letter was published, I feared the wording was a carefully worded loophole to allow those in the know to keep the abuse with the community (the "authorities = the rabbis, not law enforcement) rather than go to police.]

[In fact, even though the letter was publicly reported and understood to mean that abusers should be reported to the police, and even though no signatory of that letter or representative of the Baltimore Orthodox rabbis challenged or clarified this understanding, in the Rabbi Eisemann case the police were not called.]

[Indeed, Ner Israel's statement talks about sensitivity, both to the victims and to the alleged abuser, as if the two are somehow equivalent.]

…In the past, many mistakes were made in handling these
situations. Abusers were often not recognized for what they were, as it
was too difficult to believe that otherwise good people could do such
things, nor was it sufficiently appreciated what damage such acts could
cause. It was often thought that if the abuser was spoken to or warned,
and perhaps moved to a different environment, he would never do these
things again. In responding this way many terrible mistakes were made
arid tragic consequences resulted. We have seen too often the immediate
or eventual failure of these “behind-the-scenes agreements” to keep the
perpetrators away from others. Naïveté and a lack of understanding of
the insidious nature of these perpetrators have allowed the toll of
victims to rise. These failures haunt us — but they also motivate us to
respond more effectively and wisely in the future.

An abuser is not simply a lustful person, plagued by a Taavah — a
desire — that can be addressed with sincere Teshuva. He has a severe
illness, that may be incurable, and that is at best enormously
difficult to manage. Publicizing his status as an abuser — while
causing enormous damage to his own family — may be the only way to
truly protect the community from him.…

So? What do we have?

Baltimore's Orthodox rabbis discovered one of their own, a famous rabbi no less, is a child abuser. They did not call police. They did not provide victims with counseling. They did not keep children away from the rabbi-abuser.

Their version of "keeping an eye on" Rabbi Eisemann allows him to travel freely, without any supervision. Vulnerable children exist outside of Baltimore and outside of Orthodox communities.

What did Baltimore's rabbis do? They got Rabbi Eisemann 'counseling' from one of their own. They worked hard to protect the rabbi-abuser's reputation. They allowed him to live comfortably and in peace. And they did nothing to help the victims.

August 30, 2007

I've posted before on comment rules and why I ban commenters. And the basic comment rules are continuously posted on the sidebar of this page.

Apparently I was not specific enough, so let me clarify one more point.

Let's say you think the African-American community is poorly led. The proper way to express that would be to write "Blacks have bad leadership," or "Jesse Jackson is corrupt," etc. It would not be correct to write watermelon jokes or to call someone else a "Ni*@er lover" or to speak of the "melanin endowed."

I admit I am slow to ban racist commenters. Why? Because I think it is important for people to see the very real racism that exists, especially when that racism comes from our own.

Jews – even Orthodox Jews – should be sensitive to the corrosive effects of racism. We should be concerned, not only for the hurt inflicted on innocent blacks, but for the hurt inflicted on ourselves and society at large through the corrosive, vile effects of racism and bigotry.

If concern for larger society is not important enough to you, I would think the hurt racist comments inflict on Jews of color would be important enough to get you to think carefully before hurling racist insults. We have readers who are Ethiopian Jews and we have readers who are African-American Jews. Racist comment hurt them, too, as many have pointed out.

If you do not like something or someone or some group, by all means, make your case – just do so without the N-word or any of its variants and relatives.

Farmers are concerned that a haredi power struggle to monopolize the fruit and vegetable market in the upcoming shmita [Sabbatical] year could cause growers as much as a NIS 700 million loss and result in a sharp rise in retail produce prices.

Yusta Bleier, Chairman of the Farmers Association, said Wednesday that fruit and vegetable growers were "very concerned" about "aggressive marketing tactics" being pursued by certain haredi kosher supervision organizations.

"Haredi kosher supervisors are trying to monopolize all the major retail chains," said Bleier, "And many local rabbis are refusing to allow fruits and vegetable that are not under haredi-run kosher supervision to be sold in their towns and cities, even when the majority of residents are not even religious."…

[I]n Jewish legal tradition there is a solution to the restrictions of the shmita year. Known as "heiter mechira," which can be loosely translated as "the sale option," the solution entails selling Jewish-owned land in Israel to a non-Jew…

But haredi rabbinic leadership has traditionally opposed heiter mechira since it was first introduced at the end of the 19th century. The haredi rabbis scoff at the attempt to stage a fake "sale" of the land so as to permit farmers to continue to work as usual during the shmita year.

[Of course, these same haredi rabbis implement and make money from an equally "fake" sale every year – the selling of hametz before Passover. Other such pro forma sales are used throughout Jewish law, as well. But I, Shmarya, digress into reality …]

Instead, haredi rabbis demand that all fruits and vegetables be bought from non-Jewish, mostly Arab, farmers inside Israel who have legally registered ownership of their land or from farmers outside Israel.

Haredi leaders are also trying to put pressure on the Agriculture Ministry to increase produce imports, which would be a serious blow to local farmers.

In previous shmita years, said Bleier, haredi rabbis were concerned solely with providing kosher supervision over fruits and vegetables earmarked for their own followers.

"But this shmita year the haredim have become much more aggressive. They are now waging a war against heiter mechira. They are doing everything they can to block the sale of heiter mechira produce.

"But we won't let them. If we need to we'll set up our own fruit and vegetable stands outside the supermarket chains and sell our own produce."

In several cities local rabbis have announced that they will refuse to allow heiter mechira produce to be sold in their cities.Grocery stores will have to choose between no kosher supervision whatsoever and the stringent, haredi supervision.

For instance, the rabbis of Rehovot, Petah Tikva and Herzliya have already announced they will not allow the sale of heiter mechira. Wholesalers in Herzliya have petitioned the Supreme Court to force the local rabbi to allow the sale of heiter mechira. The wholesalers argue that since the majority of Herzliya's residents are not haredi the local rabbi cannot coerce them to accept a stringent haredi kosher supervision.

In Bat Yam, Ra'anana, Afula, Kfar Saba and Ashdod the chief rabbis are also opposed to the sale of heiter mechira.

In Jerusalem, where there is no chief rabbi, the situation is similar. Only the more stringent kosher operations will be allowed to give supervision.

Rabbi Moshe Rauchverger, a senior member of the Shmita Council in the Chief Rabbinate, said that the rabbinate's policy was to allow each local rabbi to decide for himself which kosher supervision to adopt. Rauchverger admitted that this shmita year a concerted effort was made by the rabbinate and its head, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger, to reduce to a minimum the use of heiter mechira. In fact, one of the reasons Metzger received haredi support for his appointment as chief rabbi was the promise he gave to oppose heiter mechira.…

Bleier said that annual agricultural production in Israel was NIS 7 billion. While last shmita, the haredi market only accounted for about 6-7% of the market for agricultural goods, the demand has grown so that today they represent about 17% of the market, translating into a loss for farmers of about NIS 700m.

However, the head of shmita year kosher supervision for the Edah Haredit denied his organization, which is the single largest kosher supervision apparatus catering to the haredi population, has any interest in monopolizing non haredi markets.

"We are focusing solely on predominantly haredi areas such as the haredi neighborhoods in Ashdod, Beit Shemesh, Modi'in Ilit, Beiter Ilit and Safed."

The Edah Haredit source admitted, though, that his competitor, Efrati's Kashrut Le'mehadrin [please see below], was pursuing an aggressive campaign to expand his organization's influence beyond the haredi sphere.

First, any locality's chief rabbi that refuses to allow heter mehira produce to be sold should be dismissed. The state has no business paying these rabbis' salaries.

Second, it would be wise if a movement could be started to boycott all haredi-endorsed produce and food. What they try to do to us should be done to them, but legally and in spades.

Rabbi Metzger was backed for election as chief rabbi by Rabbi Elyashiv, despite Rabbi Metzger's previous ethical lapses, the then last of which found Metzger before a Rabbinate panel of three senior rabbinic judges charged with extorting money from people as he was performing their weddings. (He was also accused of sexual harassment of both women and men.)

Rabbi Metzger threatened to sue the Rabbinate in civil court and the panel backed down, accepting Rabbi Metzger's promise not to run for chief rabbi of Tel Aviv. Later, Metger declared his candidacy for Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel and received the backing of Rabbi Elyashiv.

Haredi spokesman Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblum told me then that Rabbi Elyashiv was "fully aware" of Rabbi Metzger's ethical and legal problems including the judgment against Rabbi Metzger by the Rabbinate's panel of judges and the allegations of sexual harassment, but said that Rabbi Elyshiv chose to back Rabbi Metzger anyway to "return the glory" to the chief rabbinate.

Of course, what Rabbi Elyashiv really wanted was the weakest candidate that he could propel into office. That would weaken the Rabbinate and, at the same time, put it under Rabbi Elyashiv's control.

So haredim under the leadership of Rabbi Elyashiv are inflicting their stringencies non-haredim. At the same time, their actions may very well bankrupt Israel's farmers.

Rabbi Elyashiv does this in the name of Torah but, make no mistake about it – it is political power and the money that comes with it Rabbi Elyashiv seeks.

Many religious leaders are misguided. Some, as you know, are criminals who parade in the clothing of saints. But I think few religious leaders are truly evil. However, Rabbi Elyashiv is, in my eyes, one of those truly evil men.

As noted previously, I notified the editor of the Jewish Press, Jason Maoz, of Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum's plagiarism on Thursday 8-23-07. I sent an urgent email and followed up several hours later with a phone message. I emailed and called this week, as well, all with no response – until noon Wednesday.

Jason Maoz answered my email and explained the error Rabbi Tannenbaum made. In the process of explaining, it became clear Maoz was under the (incorrect) impression that Rabbi Tannenbaum had been working with the article's actual author, Dorothy Shapiro, even before the first column appeared.

I asked him again for a statement. After an exchange of emails, he gave one:

"We removed last week's Machberes oolumn from our website pendingclarification. Dorothy Shapiro told us that Tannenbaum had spoken with herwhile he was working on the followup column that appears this week, addingthat she had no problem with his use of her material, though she wouldhave preferred being credited in last week's column. In this week's issueTannenbaum gives her that credit, and we also put an editor's note on topof the column expressing regret at Tannenbaum's failure to credit her lastweek. In addition, we restored last week's column to our website alongwith an editor's note concerning Mrs. Shapiro's authorship. Tannenbaum hasbeen told in very strong terms that in the future he must be more carefuland precise in crediting any original sources."

I told him (before the statement above was written) that Rabbi Tannenbaum had not been working with Dorothy Shapiro before his first column – the one he stole from her – was printed. He first contacted her only after the Jewish Press was informed of the theft.

Rabbi Tannenbaum's excuse? He thought she had passed away.

Even so, Rabbi Tannenbaum did not attempt to contact the Catskills Institute, the publisher of that article or the family of Dorothy Shapiro – he simply stole the column from a supposedly dead woman and printed it as his own.

How do I know this? I spent a long time on the phone with Mrs. Shapiro, a kind, gentle woman who was willing to overlook the theft. I also contacted the head of the Catskills Institute who told me he had not been contacted by Rabbi Tannenbaum or the Jewish Press.

Jason Maoz says he did not contact the Catskills Institute because Dorothy Shapiro told him she owns the rights to the article. This is fine and, as far as I know, true. Still, one would think the Catskills Institute should have been contacted as a courtesy, if not to investigate further.

In the end, both Dorothy Shapiro and the Catskills Institute got some well deserved publicity, so in this respect, the affair worked out well for them.

But this does not and should not let Rabbi Tannenbaum off the hook:

Rabbi Tannenbaum had no contact with Dorothy Shapiro until after his theft was exposed.

Rabbi Tannenbaum should not be a leader of a rabbinic organization. But, sadly, he remains the director of the Rabbinical Alliance of America (Igud HaRabbonim), despite his crimes.

Rabbi Tannenbaum should not hold any public position in the Jewish community. Yet he 'pens' a weekly column for the Jewish Press, the largest independent Jewish weekly in America.

Both the Rabbinical Alliance of America and the Jewish Press are Orthodox Jewish organizations. By allowing Rabbi Tannenbaum to retain his positions without penalty, the Jewish Press and the RAA send a very negative message, a message that is received and understood by Jewish children, as well as by Jewish adults – theft, fraud and stealing are not disqualifications for Jewish leadership.

I do not believe either organization wants to send this message. But every day Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum remains in their employ, it is that very message they both send.

August 29, 2007

1. Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum, "director" of the Rabbinical Alliance of America (Igud HaRabbonim) and weekly Jewish Press columnist publishes a column on 8-22-07 that is almost in its entirety plagiarized from the Catskill Institute website.

2. Jewish Press editor Jason Maoz is contacted on 8-23-07 both by email and voicemail. He does not respond questions about this theft and about the general policies of the Jewish Press regarding plagiarism.

3. The Jewish Press removes Rabbi Tannenbaum's 8-22-07 column from its website on the morning of 8-27-07. It remains down through the early morning today, 8-29-07.

4. Jason Maoz does not respond to emails sent and phone messages left on 8-27-07 asking for clarification.

5. On 8-29-07 Rabbi Tannenbaum's column is reposted with the following clarification:

(Note: The following article was written by Dorothy Shapiro for the Catskills Institute website. Some very slight modifications have been made for this column. We thank Mrs. Shapiro for her research and her suggestions about what to include in a follow-up column.

For all of you who were critical of other plagiarisms when they originated from the left (i.e., the NY Times and Jayson Blair or, more parochially, from a left wing Orthodox Jewish blogger), why are you silent now?

Editor’s Note: In last week’s column, Rabbi Tannenbaum, as he acknowledges this week, utilized an article that originally appeared on the Catskills Institute website. He regrets his error in not crediting that article to its author, Dorothy Shapiro.

More on this and the Jewish Press response to Rabbi Tannenbaum's plagiarism here.

1. A modern state cannot survive without a monopoly (under law) over military, police and judicial powers.

2. If that monopoly is broken, the state is weakened, often irrevocably.

3. Israel has that monopoly within the Green Line.

4. But Israel in effect does not have that power in the West Bank, where fear of settler rebellions and violence dictate Israel's actions as much, if not more so, than Palestinian terrorism.

5. There are therefore two "states," so-to-speak, the first a Western democracy, the second a primarily religious state governed by extremism.

6. If a peace deal is ever reached that calls for evacuation of significant parts of the West Bank or of eastern Jerusalem, the second "state" will clash with the first.

7. Israel's army, conditioned for years to overlook settler misbehavior, will be ill-prepared to deal with this clash, which will be exponentially larger and more violent than anything we've seen so far with the Gaza evacuations.

8. In other words, any Israeli government will have to weigh seriously the risk of civil war. This risk will thwart genuine peace deals and will eventually – when a deal too good to pass up comes along – lead to internecine violence and the majority will be held hostage, so-to-speak, by the radical minority.

This is the basic thesis put forward by Yehuda Bauer, the noted Israeli historian, in a controversial op-ed in Ha'aretz.

Although he does not say it directly, I suspect what Professor Bauer wants is for Israel to enforce its laws and curtail the activities of extremist settlers now, before it is too late. I also suspect Professor Bauer believes there is a very narrow window of time for doing so.

He closes this way:

…There is no truth to the well-known tradition that the Second Temple
was destroyed due to baseless hatred or internecine rivalry. The Temple
was destroyed because religious, messianic extremists forced the nation
to rebel against a global empire that it had no chance of defeating. [A time may come] in which a radical
religious minority thwarts peace because the fanatic political
assassins of the Second Temple period have found worthy successors.

Professor Bauer's history is correct. It was religious nationalist zealots – the children of rabbis, in part – who largely caused the Destruction. Is his prediction correct, as well?

The Jerusalem municipality this week named a street after Rabbi Eliezer Nanas, who endured imprisonment at the hands of Soviet authorities and, later in life, tutored thousands of students in Israel's capital.…

Nanas, who passed away 10 years ago in Jerusalem, was born in 1897 in Kherson, Ukraine. After completing his studies, he became an accountant, a job which allowed him to secretly support the Lubavitch underground yeshiva network in the Soviet Union. He helped provide food to the yeshiva students and also was instrumental in obtaining financial support for the teachers' salaries.

Later, he secured an agreement with a small town mayor in the vicinity of Rostov-on-Don, Russia, whereby students could learn in his jurisdiction even though the town had no Jews of its own. The students learned there for eight years without the Communist authorities discovering the yeshiva.

Nevertheless, Nanas spent a total of 20 years in Soviet prisons for actions deemed counterrevolutionary, an experience he recounted in [the book] Subbota under the pseudonym of Avraham Netzach.…

In prison, Nanas earned the nickname of Subbota, the Russian word for the Sabbath, because of his scrupulous observance of Shabbat under the most brutal of circumstances. While behind bars, he also refused to eat cooked food and adhered strictly to the kosher dietary laws.

In 1955, Nanas was freed from prison and in 1965 was allowed to leave the Soviet Union for, eventually, Israel. Upon his arrival, he immediately began tutoring students; in 1986, at the age of 95, he opened a library in his house that offered Chassidic publications and a quiet place to learn. Today, the library he founded occupies a four-story building in Jerusalem.…

It seems the little 5-year-old boy used as a mascot by the SS and featured in Nazi propaganda during World War Two is a Jew named Galprin originally from Belarus. He lived as a non-Jew after his shtetl was liquidated by the SS and continued to live as a non-Jew after moving to in Australia shortly after WW2. His story is told for the first time in a book written by his son.

“It is no wonder that soldiers are killed in war; they don’t observe Shabbat, don’t observe the Torah, don’t pray every day, don’t lay phylacteries on a daily basis – so is it any wonder that they are killed? No, it’s not.

“God have mercy on them (soldiers) and make them become newly religious – then they will all live a good life in peace,” Rabbi Ovadia said.…“[W]hen soldiers believe and pray, God helps them during the war. (These soldiers) don’t get killed.”…

This is perhaps the most obscene statement I have ever seen by a Jewish religious leader.

To do that, immediately after posting the original story, I emailed Jason Maoz, the editor of the Jewish Press. I sent a link to the story, asked him for his response, and included four specific questions.

Many hours later, when Jason Maoz had not responded, I called the Jewish
Press to speak with him. I was told he had left the office moments
before. At the secretary's suggestion, I left him a voice mail. He did not respond to that, either.

Here are the qustions I asked Maoz in that email:

1. What is the JP policy on plagiarism?

2. How does this policy effect a regular, weekly columnist who has violated it?

3. Will Rabbi Tannenbaum's column be withdrawn?

4. Will he remain a weekly columnist?

Rabbi Tannenbaum is said to be close to members of the Klass family, founders of the Jewish Press. This may explain why a plagiarized column is still posted on its website without correction or emendation more than two full days after being notified of the theft. It may also explain why a man with a thirty-plus-year record of fraud and SEC violations has a weekly column in "America's largest independent Jewish newspaper," and the current silence of its editor, Jason Maoz, as well.

August 24, 2007

A woman has no claims against a Rockland County, N.Y., rabbi who she alleges
counseled her to have sex with him as a way of overcoming her problems in
finding a husband, a divided Appellate Division, 1st Department, ruled
Thursday.

The woman, Adina Marmelstein, asserts in Marmelstein v. Kehillat New
Hempstead, 117629/05, that, as a result of the counseling, she and
Orthodox Rabbi Mordecai Tendler had sexual relations for five years ending in
2005 after the rabbi had abused her emotionally and physically.

In a 3-2 ruling, the 1st Department dismissed the two remaining claims against
Tendler as being barred by a state statute that specifically rules out a cause
of action for seduction.

Lenore Kramer of Kramer & Dunleavy in Manhattan, who represents Marmelstein,
said she will take the case to the Court of Appeals as a matter of right since
there were two dissenting votes.…

The allegations were not enough to overcome the bar against actions for
seduction in Civil Rights Law §80-a, Justice Joseph P. Sullivan wrote.
Marmelstein's two remaining causes of action for breach of fiduciary duty and
intentional infliction of emotional distress, he concluded, are "thinly veiled
claims" for "seduction," a term that has been "broadly defined" by the courts
in construing Civil Rights Law §80-a.…

At the trial level, Manhattan Justice Jane S. Solomon had dismissed
Marmelstein's other two claims -- fraud and negligent infliction of emotional
distress. She had not appealed that ruling.

In dissent, Justice John W. Sweeny Jr. concluded that, notwithstanding the
statutory prohibition against actions for seduction, Marmelstein had made
allegations sufficient to make out a claim of breach of fiduciary duty..…

The article goes on to describe a 2005 case where a woman initiated sex with her pastor. The woman also sought counseling from that pastor. The court dismissed the woman's claim for clergy malpractice but left open the possibility that the woman may have a claim for breach of fiduciary duty. Judge Sweeny, in his dissent, noted that breach of fiduciary duty may very well be present in the Rabbi Tendler case:

…Marmelstein's allegations, taken as true, Sweeny stated, describe a
fiduciary relationship: Marmelstein consulted Tendler because he had held
himself out as counselor with expertise in women's issues, and he abused the
confidence she had placed in him "by inducing plaintiff to enter into a sexual
relationship to satisfy his own desires."

Similarly, the claim for the intentional infliction of emotional distress was
not "merely a seduction case," Sweeny wrote, but a claim that Tendler
had "clearly exploited the vulnerability of the plaintiff to attain his own
ends."…

Writing for the majority, Justice Joseph P. Sullivan disagreed:

…The fact that the Court of Appeals in Wende C. left open the issue of
whether "under very different circumstances" a fiduciary relationship may
arise between a cleric and a parishioner, Sullivan wrote, "does
nothing to advance the dissent's position."

In Wende C., [Justice Joseph P.] Sullivan reasoned, there were no "veiled
allegations" of seduction like those made by Marmelstein.

In other words, because the woman made claims of "veiled" seduction by Rabbi Mordechai Tendler, all claims of breach of fiduciary duty are void.

Following what appears to be the logic of the majority decision, anything less than forcible rape cannot qualify as breaching fiduciary duty. Therefore, if any non-vulnerable adult has manipulated sex with a clergyperson who is counseling them, no legal redress is available.

This seems to be an unusually narrow interpretation of the law. However, it does seem to follow New York State's pattern of allowing religion a wider berth than is common elsewhere in the United States.

An example is the lack of a requirement for background checks of day care workers and school teachers who work or teach in religious day cares and schools, while teachers in public schools and nonsectarian day cares must by law have a criminal background check before hire. Another example is the generally lax state enforcement of tax laws when dealing with religious charities like churches, religious schools, synagogues and yeshivot but a stricter level of enforcement of those same laws when dealing with nonsectarian charities.

At any rate, it seems that clergy abuse will need to be dealt with legislatively with a clearly drawn law defining its parameters. Barring that, unless this decision is overturned on appeal, it seems that Rabbi Mordechai Tendler's gift to New York will be a near-free pass for clergy to manipulate and bed the people who come to them for counseling.

August 23, 2007

Elchonon Zimmerman, an Orthodox Jewish teacher, was found not guilty Thursday of assaulting a 15-year-old black male last year.

The
ruling, after a day-long trial at municipal court, capped a 15-month
civil rights drama that brought rallies and racial tensions to the
community.

Zimmerman, 44, was charged in May 2006 with simple assault after getting into a confrontation
with Jamarr Dickerson in a predominately Orthodox neighborhood [of Lakewood]. Both
parties claim the other punched first when Zimmerman, thinking
Dickerson appeared suspicious walking through an alley way behind homes
on Lawrence Avenue, approached him.

The judge, Scott J. Basen,
said Thursday that he could not find Zimmerman guilty but did feel his
actions toward Dickerson were biased and based on his skin color.

In the end, it came down to he said / he said. Because Dickerson was alone, the only 'witnesses' were haredi. Dickerson claimed haredim rushed out of an adjacent synagogue and joined Zimmerman in beating him and holding him down until police came.

Dickerson – an honors student at the local high school – was only accused by haredim of acting suspiciously by walking in broad daylight on a well-used and publicized short cut between two haredi properties. Rabbi Zimmerman confronted the youth and, according to Dickerson, attacked him while calling for help. Other haredim rushed out of the neighboring synagogue and joined in the beating. Rabbi Zimmerman claimed Dickerson punched first although, if memory serves, he did admit to attempting to block Dickerson's path and detain him before any blows were thrown.

OU president Steve Savitsky speaks with Dr. Hella Winston and Dr. Aharon Fried about secular education, the steps many haredi communities take to keep secular knowledge out of their communities, and the heavy price paid by haredim as a result of this.

Rabbi Tannenbaum, has a thirty-plus year record of fraud and securities violations, is the director/executive vice president of Igud HaRabbonim, the Rabbinical Alliance of America, which is headed by Rabbi Avraham Hecht, a Lubavitcher, of Rabin assassination infamy. The RAA was in effect a political tool of Chabad during the late 1980s and first years of the 1990s and still occasionally serves that role today. (Rabbi Tannenbaum himself is not a Lubavitcher.)

So when is it that haredi rabbis will decide to distance themselves from criminals who reside among them? Or is being ethically challenged truly a prerequisite for today's haredi rabbinate?

You can see Rabbi Tannenbaum's column and the original article he stole from after the jump.

UPDATE 8-25-07: I sent an email to Jason Maoz, editor of the Jewish Press, immediately after posting this story. I asked him for his response. Several hours later, when he had not responded, I called the Jewish Press to speak with him. I was told he had left the office moments before. I left him a voice mail. He did not respond to that, either. Here are the qustions I asked Maoz:

1. What is the JP policy on plagiarism?

2. How does this policy effect a regular, weekly columnist who has violated it?

August 22, 2007

Hazon is planning its second annual Kosher Food Conference and they have decided to shecht (ritually slaughter) an animal, probably a lamb, so attendees can see what kosher slaughter is. Nigel Savage writes on The Jew and the Carrot:

…So now we’re planning the 2nd Annual Hazon Food Conference, and started
to get into this. How do we do it? Is it legal? Where do we do it? Who
does it? How do we get it certified as kosher?

The first thing we found out (and this surprised me): meat has to be
hung up for a few days before you can eat it. So we couldn’t, for
instance, shecht a goat on Friday afternoon and then eat it for Friday
night dinner. (Or a lamb either, of course). The solution to that is:
we’ll shecht two animals: one on Friday afternoon, and anyone who wants
to see an animal being killed will be able to see that. But we’ll also
shecht one a week before, and that’ll be the one we’ll eat on Friday
night.…

Doesn't it just charm you when an official of a Jewish organization that deals extensively with kosher food production issues doesn't have a clue when comes to, well, actual kosher food production?

Meat does not need to be be "hung up" for a few days before you can eat it. Think back to the Temple, Nigel, and the sacrifices offered there. The Torah (that book you sometimes refer to when making statements of purpose) actually describes various sacrifices in some detail. Nowhere in that detail is a command to "hang up" the meat for a few days before consumption. In fact, quite the opposite is true.

So one must presume you mean to say that the animal you slaughter will taste better if the meat is aged for a few days before cooking. While this may be true – certainly aged steaks are preferred in the non-kosher world – it is by no means necessary or even critical. Most meat eaten today is not aged. It is slaughtered, processed and vacuum-sealed within a couple of hours and is then either immediately frozen or refrigerated. It is not aged.

As for the problem mentioned later in the post, here is how to get your animal kosher certified:

Ask the rabbi who certifies the conference center kitchen to recommend a shochet.

Get a letter from the kosher certifying agency approving that shochet and permitting the use of the meat from that slaughter on a one-time basis. Make sure to point out that the slaughter is being done for Jewish educational purposes.

Be prepared to pay to have a rabbi of the kosher certifying agency's choice supervise the slaughter, bedika (checking the lungs), treibering (removal of forbidden fats, etc.), and koshering of the meat.

NEAR a prairie dotted with cattle and green with soy beans, barley, corn and oats, two bearded Hasidic men dressed in black pray outside a slaughterhouse here that is managed by an evangelical Christian.

What brought these men together could easily have kept them apart: religion.

The two Hasidim oversee shehitah, the Jewish ritual slaughtering of meat according to the Book of Leviticus. The meat is then shipped to Wise Organic Pastures, a kosher food company in Brooklyn owned by Issac Wiesenfeld and his family. When Mr. Wiesenfeld sought an organic processor that used humane methods five years ago, he found Scott Lively, who was just beginning Dakota Beef, now one of the largest organic meat processors in the country.

Mr. Lively adheres to a diet he believes Jesus followed. Like Mr. Wiesenfeld, he says the Bible prescribes that he use organic methods to respect the earth, treat his workers decently and treat the cattle that enter his slaughterhouse as humanely as possible.

Mr. Lively … slaughters about 45 steer a day at Dakota Beef. Larger facilities will slaughter 2,000 or more.

“We take time to be sure the animal has been processed humanely,” he said. “This is not only important for our humane handling standards, but it is also very much biblical in our minds.”

The slaughterhouse weds ancient practices with modern insights and technology. Much of the plant was planned with the help of Dr. Temple Grandin, a designer of humane livestock facilities and professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University. She suggested changes like shielding the animals from humans milling about and nestling them in a comfortable head-holder as Tal Ginter, the shohet, or kosher slaughterer, wields the knife that slices their jugular vein, rather than first stunning the animals, as is a common commercial practice.…

So far so good. Almost. The Lubavitcher shochet starts speaking:

“It is not a horrible thing,” said Mr. Ginter, who worked in the
slaughterhouse until recently under the supervision of Crown Heights
Kosher and the Orthodox Union. “It looks bloody, but according to the
Bible and the Torah, you have to be mindful of the animal and let it
die as fast as you can, to cause less pain.”

If that is true, Rubashkin shechita (Aaron's Best, David's, Shor HaBor, Supreme, etc.) would be non-kosher because Rubashkin follows slaughter practices that actually extend the dying time of cattle and increase suffering. (Meat hook throat-ripping and probing, for example, and upside-down slaughter in a Weinberg Pen, just to name three.) Instead, Rubashkin is the so-called top of the line of glatt kosher American and South American-produced meat.

The Crown Heights Beis Din, A.K.A. Crown Heights Kosher, if it took Tal Ginter's statement literally, would not put their imprimatur on Agriprocessors or Rubashkin. But CHK does – the primary endorsed source of meat for the Chabad community is indeed Rubashkin and Agriprocessors.

The good news is, if you're willing to eat Lubavitch shechita (with a nominal OU presence), Wise would seem to be a good choice.

An interesting piece of information brought out by Ms. Nathan is that a major force driving the move to a humanely produced diet is Evangelical Christianity. Where once hippies tread, the well-polished shoes of the Bible Belt now dominate.

Which brings Ms. Nathan to describe the Jewish movement for a humanely produced diet. She touches on Hazon, The Jew and the Carrot, the Movement for Jewish Renewal. And then she mentions the Conservative Movement's Hechsher Tzedek:

…Environment-minded Jews are asking the leaders of Conservative Judaism
to rewrite their kosher certification rules to incorporate ethical
concerns about workers, animals and the land.…

The operative phrase here is "kosher certification rules " as opposed to halakha (Jewish law) itself. "Environment-minded Jews" are simply insisting that all parts of Jewish law be followed, including the prohibition of causing unnecessary pain to animals (tzaar baalei hayyim) and the various strictures regarding treatment of employees. They argue – correctly, in my view – that putting the laws of kosher food above the laws that protect human and animal life has no biblical or halakhic basis.

Just as they want their food to be kosher, they want the workers that produce that food to be treated correctly and they want the animals that they eat or whose milk or eggs they consume to be treated humanely in all stages of processing, from birth through the ultimate slaughter.

While they welcome the Conservative Movement's Hechsher Tzedek
initiative, they do not limit their requests for humanely produced
kosher food to Conservative Rabbis – indeed, many have tried bring
change within Orthodoxy, only to be stymied by powerful kosher food
interests.

But most importantly, what is lost in Joan Nathan's turn of phrase is a very important point.

Judaism's stand on humane treatment of employees, day laborers – and, yes, even indentured servants and slaves – along with humane treatment of animals are as much a part of Jewish law, history and theology as the duration one's steak sits in salt before cooking. In fact, many of these laws governing treatment of workers and animals have a better provenance, so to speak, than the laws governing kosher food.

Many of the laws dealing with treatment of workers and animals are biblical or are directly extended from biblical law. But many of the "laws" relating to kosher food so strictly followed today are only stringencies (humrot) and have less standing, so to speak, in Jewish law than the laws governing humane treatment of workers and animals – laws that are now widely ignored.

For all those working to improve the treatment of animals used for kosher food or to improve the treatment of the workers who produce that kosher food, it is important to argue this clearly. Treating animals and employees well is not something new in Jewish law – it is something new in the kosher food and kosher supervision businesses.

Jewish law has always been ahead of the curve on these issues. It is kosher food producers along with kosher supervision agencies and the rabbis who staff them that inexplicably lag behind.

August 20, 2007

…Amnesty International contend the Israeli government and the police
have largely turned a blind eye to this trade [in foreign women] going on under their
nose. Exactly how a nation that arose on the back of a history of
victimization can be so slow to act firmly to root out the systemic
exploitation and abuse of smuggled females within their own society is
a mystery that is difficult to fathom.

Many Jewish writers and
commentators in the US and Canada have been shocked by the impunity of
Israeli pimps and gangsters. Many are dismayed by the apparent
unwillingness of the Israeli government to crack down on a trade that
the authorities are all too well aware of. Here in Canada the respected
investigative journalist, Victor Malarek, has done some excellent work
in exposing the trade.

There is a strong racist element to the
trade in Israel. Leah Gruenpeter-Gold, a co-director of the Awareness
Center in Tel Aviv, claims that these young Eastern European women are
being sacrificed to the sexual needs of males, in a culture that
protects the virtue of the Jewish female. She and her associate spoke
of their disgust at the manner in which some orthodox Jews take
advantage of these women.

The haredin - orthodox Jews - crowd
into Tel Aviv brothels on Friday mornings and afternoons for
pre-Shabbat fun and games. In the area of the Stock Exchange and
Diamond Exchange this activity is particularly in evidence. Since the
orthodox cannot masturbate according to religious law, they must have
sex with a woman. Their law prohibits them from using condoms, so they
have to pay the pimps more in order to have "the privilege".

Grunpeter-Gold
claims the victims are being sacrificed ..."because these women are not
human beings ... they are foreign women. The religious prefer it to be
with foreign women because then they don't wrong Jewish women."

Why
isn't more done to stop the ongoing sexual victimization of women in
Israel? According to the girls working in the trade, police and other
prominent members of Israeli society are reputedly involved themselves
- sometimes in taking bribes or other "business", or just as clients. A
percentage of orthodox as mentioned are also involved. Who knows how
deep the collusion goes - it's impossible to track. But certainly such
connections would work against official attempts to crack down on the
trade.

Of course, from the late 1800s through the late 1920s, Jewish pimps filled brothels in South America with Jewish girls taken from the same areas of Russia and Ukraine the current non-Jewish sex slaves are stolen from. Nathan Englander's new novel, The Ministry of Special Cases, deals with the aftermath of this sordid history.

But Maconachy's point still stands:

"Exactly how a nation that arose on the back of a history of
victimization can be so slow to act firmly to root out the systemic
exploitation and abuse of smuggled females within their own society is
a mystery that is difficult to fathom."

[Hat Tip: Seymour.]

UPDATE: It turns out this is a 6-month-old article and, low and behold, Rebecca Honig Friedman posted on it in a much more timely fashion over on Jewess. She now notes that since her original post, Israel has been doing a little better in dealing with human trafficking. Despite that, though, Israel still has a long way to go.

August 19, 2007

I would add the "friends who surrounded" the Rebbe in his youth mostly left Orthodoxy; those that remained largely left Chabad and the hasidic movement, and none of them really could be called "friends" – the Rebbe was a loner by choice from his youth. I would also add that many of the elder statesmen of Chabad opposed the Rebbe's ascent to leadership and the younger hasidim who carried him to leadership viewed the Rebbe in superhuman terms – something elder hasidim largely did not.

Chana Gourary, the 6th rebbe's eldest daughter and an opponent of the Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson told the story of Mendel Schneerson this way (this is a paraphrase, not a direct quote unless indicated):

I asked my sister (the Rebbe's wife) what would be after Mendel left this world? Had he taken any steps to assign leadership? My sister asked Mendel. He replied to her in French, "After me, the deluge."

The Rebbe brooked no criticism. His aides were not allowed to question. He had little contact with any person not under his power. He could fire, banish or shame anyone he dealt with at will. He was their father and grandfather, their employer and taskmaster, and he controlled destinies like no other Jewish leader ever had.

The Rebbe had no regular contact with other rabbis or Jewish leaders. And as the few remaining elder hasidim who remembered the 6th rebbe (and, more importantly, remembered his cousins, the other Chabad – as opposed to Lubavitch – rebbes who had competing hasidic courts), he became judge, jury and court of appeals, all unchallenged, aloof and willfully alone. He spent far more time 'conversing' with his dead predecessor than he did with live human beings – especially with live human beings who would have dared to question him.

As the Rebbe became more isolated he became more extreme. He believed his own PR, so to speak, and his movement grew more cult-like. A case can be made that, in the aftermath of his first stroke, Chabad crossed the line (i f it had not already done so earlier) from a Jewish, if unusual, religious grouping to a cult with Jewish trappings but a particularistic ideology and theology distinct from mainstream Jewish tradition.

In a Jewish world less concerned with raw numbers and more concerned with theology and history, the Chabad created by Mendel Schneerson would be properly viewed as a cult and he as a cult leader. But numbers – "continuity" – are today more important than truth or fealty to any historical model or article of belief.

*The parallels between this chapter of Matthew and the theology of Chabad, especially under its last three rebbes, seems astonishing. A quick reading finds the following, along with the one noted above:

Sending out disciples.

Find and teach "lost Jews," i.e., Jews who have strayed – or have been forcibly kept from – from ritual observance.

Give freely to those "lost Jews" you find.

Don't raise money here in the center to sustain you in the outskirts, raise money in the outskirts.

Preach the doctrine truthfully but be careful – and be shrewd – you will be surrounded by enemies.

Those that help you and bless you help and bless me and I and God will reward them for it. Those who do the opposite will be cursed. (The negative of this coupling is shown mostly in hasidic stories told by Chabad rebbes and leaders. Those that try to impede the "tzaddik" are often shown to be later injured or to suffer in some way. Conversely, that person may do "teshuva" and receive commensurate blessings.)

"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body…" (Think of the 6th rebbe who supposedly told Soviet authorities as a gun was held to his head, "That little toy may frighten someone with one world and two [i.e., many] gods but it does not fighten one like me who has only One God but two worlds [i.e., this physical life and the afterlife]."

And, as RebelJew notes in the comments below, the Moshiach (messiah) Campaign itself.

I've posted the entire chapter below, after the jump. See if you can find any more parallels to Chabad thought.

August 16, 2007

A granddaughter of a chief rabbi of Israel. A daughter of one of London's most prominent rabbis. She lost her virginity at 16 on the bima in front of the ark in her father's Orthodox synagogue. She dropped acid, snorted coke and slept around. She lived with a non-Jewish man. Then, after moving to Israel at the age of 22, she did teshuva:

…[I]n her mid-twenties, she
enrolled in a yeshiva, a religious school, where she effectively trained to
become a wife. It was there that, one night, religious studies between girls
turned into something else: she found herself making love to a fellow
student. “I took the dominant role, relishing the opportunity to experience
and enjoy a woman the way a man does, and slipped my finger inside her until
her pleasure could be heard on the other side of the dormitory wall.”
…

And now Reva Mann has written a tell-all memoir, The Rabbi's Daughter, published in England and in Israel now and due out in the US in October.

The Reform movement's rabbinic association is set to publish a new siddur, or prayer book.

Mishkan T'filah (Sanctuary of Prayer) is 712 pages long and more than a
decade in the making. The new prayer book was beset by delays and still
does not have a final publication date, but is expected to be available
shortly after the High Holidays.

A key feature of the book is its double-page layout, with the right
side featuring traditional prayers translated and transliterated, and
the left featuring related readings and "spiritual commentary,"
according to Rabbi Peter Knobel, president of the Central Conference of
American Rabbis and chair of the book's editorial committee.

The book also features the return of the traditional prayer for the
resurrection of the dead, which was removed in 1885 by the movement's
Pittsburgh Platform. Knobel said the reintroduction was divisive and
the movement's earlier version, which praises God who gives life to
all, is retained in the new book.…

Tonight, I saw the Ethiopian Christian woman mentioned in this post. If I understood her correctly, she told me that her priest told her to finish the rest of the fast and then make up the complete fast another day. In other words, their ritual law and our halakha coincide on this one.

On page 21 of the [Chabad women's] Neshei Newsletter, we have an article about the power
of words. Basically a typical story about a guy who blasts Chabad
because his wife comes home late from a lubavitch event. Then the guy
suddenly gets sick and is in so much pain that he needs to be
hospitalized for some time. After shlepping from hospital to hospital,
he realizes the error of his ways, apologizes to the person who taught
the shiur and begs forgiveness from Chabad in general. He finally ends
up with some tefillin that were left in a taxi which belonged to a
Lubavitcher. After he does the mitzva and returns these tefillin...
miracle of miracles... the pains in his body subside and he is cured!
Hooray! Boruch Hashem Yom Yom.

On page 58 of the same issue, a
woman writes in to blast women who do not dress modestly. Those of us
who wear low necklines and tight skirts are not to be trusted in
halacha because we do not respect halacha. Even our husbands are
suspect because how can they eat the food from our kitchens and be
really frum? On and on. The next paragraph goes like this: Some call this dress Modern Orthodox. Modern Orthodoxy finds every possible heter or not possible
heter as an excuse for leniency and sometimes gives logic precedence
over Torah. They try to first be secular and then to fit Judaism into
their lives somehow.

So after some careful thought, I
figured it out. Hashem only doesn't like when people speak ill of
Lubavitch. So people who intend to blast chabad should be careful lest
they fall prey to some mysterious illness. But those who blast Modern
Orthodoxy, have no fear, that is fine. Hashem loves that and will
probably give you some extra credit brownie points.

In fact,
in the very same issue, we have another article which explains this
concept even further. On page 34, Rabbi Shusterman explains that truth
is more important than peace. Because if one chooses peace over
truth, the truth is lost... and the peace, if achieved will be
superficial and will not last. If one chooses truth over peace, one has
truth for sure and theres a good chance one will, in the long run, gain
lasting peace as well.

Good advice to keep in mind during
those stupid marriage fights we all have. Whose turn is it to take out
the trash? Who was supposed to go shopping and who missed taking the
kids to their swimming lesson? The truth, Rabbi Shusterman teaches us,
is more important than peace.

Anyway, it's gonna be a long
time before the Messiah shows his face 'round here. How many different
factions of Judaism think that only their own version is the
authentic truth?

In a related post titled "Hypocrisy,", she writes about a rabbi who lies to Jew to get the Jew to bury his mother according to normative Jewish law. Is lying okay in kiruv, she asks? Then she tells a story that goes back to so many of the discussions we've had here regarding the inferior status of non-Jews in Jewish law and theology:

There is a new organization [run by Lubavitchers] called AskNoah.
It is for gentiles who wish to observe the Sheva Mitzvos. The Neshei
article has a whole big feature on what a great and inspirational
effort this all is. It would be very nice, except that a while ago, I
met one of the founders. Stayed in his home for shabbos. At one point,
he and his wife were discussing a pleasant experience that they had
with a kind gentile worker or neighbor or something. He then says,
"this guy was so nice, it was almost like he was Jewish."

Why, if you are a gentile, would you possibly want to learn rules from someone who thinks you are an inferior being?

Our more recent discussions of non-Jews in Jewish law and theology can be found here:

August 15, 2007

Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum, the ethically challenged executive vice president of Igud HaRabbonim, the Rabbinic Alliance of America (see his Security and Exchange Commission record, etc.) devotes his weekly Jewish Press column (that's right, the Jewish Press, the 'voice' of Orthodox Jewry in America, gives a weekly column to a man with a 30-plus-year record of stock fraud and related endeavors) to the Brooklyn kapporot scandal publicized by PETA. Before we get to what seems to be the good news, let's deal with Rabbi Tannenbaum's grasp of fundamental Jewish history:

Rabbi Karo was born in Spain and, after the Spanish expulsion of 1492, settled in Portugal. In 1497, he moved to Greece and then to Turkey in 1520, settling in Safed in 1535. Rabbi Isserlis was born and lived in Poland and was consulted by the Mechaber (Rabbi Karo) to add a European perspective to the Shulchan Aruch.

This is sheer insanity. Both men wrote codes independent of each other and without each other's knowledge. Rabbi Karo (the Mechaber) got his into print first. Rabbi Issreles (the Rema) was saddened by this. He took his code and rewrote it as a commentary to Rabbi Karo's Shulkhan Arukh. Rabbi Karo did not "consult" with Rabbi Issreles to add a "European perspective" to his code – the Rema simply added that in on his own.

It does not take much to be a leader of Jews these days, and Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum is a living example of that rule.

Now, on to the Kapporot controversy.

As I noted a couple of weeks ago, PETA sent letters to NYC's health commissioner and to the Brooklyn DA and other officials complaining about unsanitary conditions and poor animal handling at kapparot centers in Brooklyn, especially the center in Crown Heights which is especially dirty, poorly run, and practices extremely poor animal handling. PETA included pictures and a video.

Someone who received the letter leaked it to Brooklyn haredi rabbis who initially spouted off about PETA's alleged agenda to stop shechita (Jewish ritual slaughter) in America. The rabbis organized a meeting and the leaders of Agudath Israel, Satmar and even Lubavitch (home to the Crown Heights kapporot fiasco) came.

What they were treated to was a presentation on many kashrut-related violations at these street kapporot centers, violations of other halakha (like reusing live chickens over and over again which defeats the purpose of kapparot), health and safety violations and tzaar baalei hayyim violations. The rabbis passed a resolution meant to govern this year's kapparot centers:

…The session directed that all kapparos centers be prohibited from allowing chickens to be in the sun all day, that the birds be protected by an awning or improvised roof, and that the birds be sprayed with ample water periodically. In addition, the session focused on health concerns.

Dr. Yitzchok (Richard) Cofsky of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center Brooklyn, reported that holding a chicken will not impart an infectious disease. However, if chicken feces somehow become embedded under one’s fingernails and are somehow ingested, severe stomach cramps are possible. However, Dr. Cofsky assured the session, chicken feces ingestion will not develop into an infectious disease. In response, the assembled rabbis regulated kapparos centers to have adequate supplies of surgical gloves as well as alcohol hand wipes.…

Will these directives be followed? Who knows. Until PETA's letter, nothing had been done to deal with the problem. Rabbi Tannenbaum notes:

…The KIS 2003 recommendations have been repeatedly circulated. Now is
the time to finally heed their alarm. A continuation of kapparos
kashrus abuses cannot be allowed to continue. The kosher consuming
public must become sensitive to this issue and register its outrage.…

So why would PETA's letter work here but not work as well in dealing with Rubashkin?

Because most of the rabbis have no financial links to these kapporot operations, and receive little if any, money from them. Rubashkin, however, has many rabbis in his employ and he writes many checks that benefit various yeshivot, schools and synagogues. Trite as it is, follow the money. Money may not be able to buy you love, but it can buy you rabbis.

That said, let's hope these guys can stop kapporot abuses. If not, let's hope the government can do that, instead.

The list of participating rabbis, which includes Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Weireb of the OU, the Novominsker Rebbe and many others, is posted after the jump.

So, to is information on reports done by haredi rabbis in 2003 and 2005 which found multiple kashrut, tzaar baalei hayyim, and health violations at street kapparot centers. The report did not stop the violations.

Marty Bluke notes that haredi appeals for tzedaka (charity) increasingly offer the donor something for his donation – special blessings, intercession on high, etc. What happened to the idea of giving just for the sake of giving, just for the mitzva, he asks?

I answer: It doesn't work when there are so many competing charities raising money from the same pool of people, especially in a society that has so many men learning full time and not working. There is not enough money to go around, so charities need every edge they can get – even if that edge is, shall we say, garish.

A better solution would be to combine schools and community organizations to reduce or eliminate duplication. But that cuts out a lot of patronage jobs and nepotism. And that ain't gonna' happen anytime soon.

August 14, 2007

In order to achieve more transparency in moderation of comments on this
blog, let me be clear about a policy that I have not been implementing
with sufficient consistency but will going forward. Comments that
attempt to undermine Judaism will be deleted. It is not out of fear but
out of annoyance. Find yourself another soapbox. Skeptics are welcome
on this blog to read and to contribute comments, but not to preach
their skepticism.

I have no doubt that skeptic blogs will take
this as an admission that traditional Judaism cannot withstand
criticism. Let them. It is nothing but a willful delusion.…

Of course, it is not a "willful delusion." Rabbi Student has been deleting challenging comments unannounced for years, skewing the 'debate' he hosts to make his positions appear stronger.

When do I delete comments or ban commenters?

If a commenter uses more than one name/alias, especially to make it appear as if his argument has more support than it truly does.

If a commenter uses abusive language directed at other commenters or others.

Foul language.

Spam, spam-like behavior.

Missionary activity.

Lying to make an argument appear stronger, as in quoting a source but distorting its meaning or lying about the actual quote. (I.e., "Ploni, quoted in Smith, http://www.example.com/smith/ploni/shmaryswrong.html/, says the earth is most definitely flat and Einstein agrees with him as quoted there." The source actually says, "Ploni, quoted in Smith,
http://www.example.com/smith/ploni/shmaryswrong.html/, says the earth
is not flat and there is no scientific doubt about this."

Leaving comments without using either your real name --or-- one alias. In other words, no unattributed comments are allowed.

August 13, 2007

So tonight I'm visiting residents in a nursing home, one I get to several times per week. I know the staff well, and I know dozens of residents. Anyway, the kitchen brings up a snack cart with sandwiches, cookies, chips and ice cream bars. The residents all go for the ice cream. One sneaks an extra bar and gives it as a present to an aide, a twenty-something woman originally from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She takes it and starts eating. Another aide, a nice guy also from Addis, sees her and tells her harshly in Amharic to stop eating. She does and looks shaken.

I ask her what happened. It turns out this was a fast day for Ethiopian Christians. J's mother's yartzeit and her "resurrection." The girl says to me, "I don't know what to do. I forgot I was fasting and now I cannot fast. I've never done this before! What do I do?"

So I paskened.

I told her she should not eat any more and should continue as if she were still fasting. Then, tomorrow she should call her priest to see what should be done. "He'll probably tell you to fast another day to make it up," I said, thinking of the halakhic response to similar situations.

She thought that made sense.

UPDATE 8-15-07: Tonight, I saw the Ethiopian Christian woman again. If I understood her correctly, she told me that her priest told
her to finish the rest of the fast and then make up the complete fast
another day. In other words, their ritual law and our halakha coincide on this one.

"My brother is the Herzl of all Africa. He gave his life for the sake
of Ethiopian Jewry," said Colonel Metuku Bogale, formerly the police
commissioner of Ethiopia's Shewa Province, of Yona Bogale, the
legendary leader of Ethiopian Jewry.…

Bogale was born in 1908 in the village of Wolleka and came to Israel
for the first time when he was 13 years old. He studied in Jerusalem
and continued his studies in Frankfurt, Lausanne and Paris. In 1931, he
returned to Ethiopia and taught at the Jewish School in Addis Ababa
until it was shut down by the Italians, who occupied the country in
1936. In the 1950s, together with Diaspora Jewish organizations, he
established a network of Jewish educational institutions and later a
network of health clinics as well.

"Without Yona Bogale, Ethiopian Jewry would have perished," said Yaakov
Elias, an educational social worker in Rehovot. Elias is one of
Bogale's many students. He was sent to study at Kfar Batya in Ra'anana
in 1956 and returned to Ethiopia in 1964 to serve as a teacher. He and
Bogale then began a Zionist campaign to open schools in remote villages
in Ethiopia. "We would walk for an entire day to get to Jewish
villages. Because the Jews did not own land, Yona negotiated with
landowners to establish schools." Elias said.

At one stage, Bogale served as head of the translation department at
the Ethiopian Education Ministry. In the course of his work, he saw a
document from an Anglican mission that wanted to convert the Jews of
Ethiopia. Yona, who foresaw the fate of his Jewish brethren, resigned
from his position and began organizing against the mission. The emperor
asked him to drop this activity and serve as a cabinet minister, but he
refused.

In 1979, Bogale immigrated to Israel together with his wife and
daughter, joining seven other children who had immigrated before him.
That same year, he was invited to deliver a speech at the General
Assembly of what is today known as the United Jewish Communities of
North America…

Yona Bogale has never been honored by the Israeli government. No mention of him is made in schools. Even the government's Amharic-language materials do not mention him.

But Yona Bogale is not alone. Israeli schools do not teach about the thousands of Ethiopian Jews who walked across deserts and mountains under constant threat of attack to get to Israel. They do not teach about those who risked their lives to save their families and villages.

Last week, the city of Rehovot named a school after Yona Bogale. It did what official Israel has only done once before – he acknowledged with dignity the tremendous courage and sacrifices made by Jews who wanted nothing more than to walk on the soil of Eretz Yisrael.

August 12, 2007

Okay. It's cute. But is it kosher? Is a doll, a three dimensional human likeness of a known person, similar to an idol? Does Jewish law allow this? Would the Rebbe have allowed this?

Here is the human model for the above doll, Chabad of San Francisco's Rabbi Joseph Langer:

Maybe it's like the idea that if one is kind to those he should be cruel to, he will later be cruel to those he should be kind to.

Chabad bans any doll whose image is based on a non-kosher animal for fear these 'treife' dolls will negatively effect the souls of Jewish children. This insanity is based on a faulty reading of a Zohar, I think, which is anyway itself a forgery. So Chabad is very careful to ban tiger dolls and Lion King dolls while at the same time it allows and glorifies something that most normative halakhic thought would view as biblically forbidden.

August 10, 2007

Rather than bolstering the likelihood of students marrying within
their race, attending once-a-week Sunday school programs actually
slightly increases the chance of intermarriage, according to a newly
published study.

The research, conducted by Steven M. Cohen, research professor
at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, finds that the
likelihood of intermarriage increases by up to 9 percentage points
among students who attend once-a-week programs in comparison to those
who don't receive any Jewish schooling. (The pool of students was
controlled for factors such as family upbringing and other sources of
Jewish education.)

The study also found that attending congregational school two
or more times a week hardly decreases students' chances of
intermarrying.…

Cohen thinks the outcome is due to the Reform Movement. He argues that most Sunday schools are Reform affiliated and Reform has a high number of intermarried members. He reasons that Sunday school gathers these children, the products of intermarriage, together and reinforces the validity of intermarriage.

Of course, that does not explain why attending regular after school Hebrew school classes does not reduce the intermarriage effect.

I think a far more plausible explanation is that Judaism really has very little to offer normal people in this day and age. Certainly, whatever Judaism brings to the table is not enough to stop a the average Jew from out-marrying.

But why would completely uneducated Jews out-marry less than those who have some Jewish education?

I think because they have only a very vague idea of what Judaism the religion is. If they are happy in their homes and family lives, they associate Judaism with that. Their affiliation is cultural, not religious. As such, they choose to marry people who share their cultural and social outlook.

In other words, an argument can – and should – be made that secularism is a better force for Jewish continuity than religion.

But what about Orthodoxy and those from other denominations who attend Jewish day schools and yeshivot? Don't they out-marry far less frequently than secular Jews?

Yes. But they act that way not because of the ennobling doctrines of Judaism – they act this way because of indoctrination methods that include a large dose of stigmatizing both those who out-marry and non-Jews in general.

In other words, it is Judaism at its worst and most cult-like that decreases out-marriage.

Why is this the case?

I would argue it is the case because much – if not all – of what passes for Judaism is not truly divine, that Judaism is a castle built on sand and cannot withstand the winds that blow on it. This is not much different from any other religion.

An argument could be made that if we focused on being a light onto the nations of the world, that would create a Judaism that would both draw in many new adherents and retain many more born Jews. But this will not happen because the Jews who do the best retention today are the most opposed to reaching out to non-Jews, non-Jews that serve a much more important purpose in their theology – an Other to demonize; an Other to be superior to.

And, perhaps in that vein, what in the world is the Jerusalem Post doing with a lede like this?

Rather than bolstering the likelihood of students marrying within
their race, attending once-a-week Sunday school programs actually
slightly increases the chance of intermarriage…

The Post's editors must have slept through this one and its reporter, Hillary Leila Kreiger has a lot of explaining to do.

Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, who sought to bring Jews and Catholics together in life, is continuing the mission in death.

In a funeral infused with symbolism, Jews will stand in front of the sculpted saints of Notre Dame cathedral today and recite kaddish, moments before an archbishop reads Psalms for the Jew who converted to Catholicism, became a towering figure in the church, and was even touted as a possible candidate for the papacy.

Lustiger's own faith remained complex up until his death Sunday at age 80 in a Paris hospice. He never rejected his Jewish identity[. H]is mother died at Auschwitz and [he] worked to heal wounds between France's Jews and Catholics.

The longtime archbishop of Paris, a confidant of late Pope John Paul II, asked that his funeral include both faiths.

Arno Lustiger, 83, a cousin who is a German historian and Auschwitz survivor, told The Associated Press that this was his cousin's wish, to share the remembrance this way.

Arno Lustiger will lead the reading of kaddish [mourner's prayer], in Hebrew, in front of Notre Dame Friday morning.

A grandnephew, Gila, will read a Psalm and message to the cardinal from his family, in French. Another relative, Jonas-Moses Lustiger, is bringing earth from Christian holy sites in and around Jerusalem to be sprinkled on the coffin.

Shortly after the kaddish, Lustiger's successor as archbishop of Paris, Andre Vingt-Trois, will lead a funeral Mass inside the 12th-century cathedral, one of the greatest symbols of French Catholicism.

Among those in attendance will be France's leading Jewish and Catholic figures, as well as President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy will interrupt his U.S. vacation to attend Lustiger's funeral, before jetting back to Maine for lunch the next day with U.S. President George W. Bush.

Many of those attending the Mass are expected to attend the kaddish reading as well, the Paris diocese said.

August 09, 2007

I just got off a conference call press conference with the UFCW Union. I'll have more to say about the latest Rubashkin scandal shortly. In the meantime, here is the Forward's coverage of the new scandal:

…The AgriProcessors slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, received 250 non-compliance records from the United States Department of Agriculture during 2006, five of them for inadequate safeguards against Mad Cow disease, and multiple others for fecal matter in the food production area. While the entire beef, poultry and egg industry had 34 recalls in 2006, AgriProcessors had two during the last eight months, both of them Class I, the highest risk level.

In both March and September of 2006 the USDA sent the AgriProcessors plant manager a “Letter of Warning” reviewing a series of problems. At the end of the three-page letter in September, the inspector wrote that the slaughterhouse’s efforts to correct the problems had been “ineffective.” The letter concluded: “these findings lead us to question your ability to maintain sanitary conditions, and to produce a safe and wholesome product.”…

The documents were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the United Food and Commercial Workers, which has been attempting to unionize the workers at the Postville plant. The documents all stem from incidents between January 1, 2006 and January 24, 2007. …

The 250 USDA non-compliance records given to AgriProcessors during 2006 vary from benign matters of protocol to what the inspectors term “very serious” violations.

There were at least 18 records in which AgriProcessors was cited for having fecal matter on the animals being prepared. During the last 10 days of December, after AgriProcessors had received its letter of warning, it received six warnings for fecal matter. On December 26, the inspector wrote that during multiple checks of 10 chickens “fecal contamination varied between 70 and 80%.” Other problems, including bile contamination, were noted at the time. After a number of warnings, the inspector wrote that “further planned actions have either not been implemented or have not been effective.”

The inspector issued another similar citation a day later.

There were also at least five instances in which AgriProcessors was cited for not taking the required measures to fend off Mad Cow disease. In one instance, an inspector says he asked for a suspicious cow to be taken off the line and later discovered that the cow had been slaughtered with the rest of the animals. The inspector says he informed someone at the company of the “very serious noncompliance that had occurred.”

It is not immediately clear how these statistics compare to those at other similarly sized slaughterhouses. The company did have two major recalls within the last eight months, which can be compared with the 35 recalls made in the entire meat, poultry and egg industry during 2006.

In January of this year AgriProcessors recalled 35,000 pounds of beef due to mislabeling that did not mention egg albumen. Most recently, in July, 2,700 pounds of hot dogs were recalled due to “possible underprocessing.” Both of these were Class I recalls, which are made when there is a “reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death.”

The JTA reporter at the conference seemed very concerned about the union's motive and not at all concerned about the health and safety violations at Agriprocessors. The JTA reporter asked almost as a statement rather than a question, "Aren't you endangering jobs" by publicizing this information? ""Isn't it out of your purview" to be dealing with violations at a plant that is not unionized? None of the other Jewish newspaper reporters who asked questions seemed conversant with the issues. This says volumes about was passes for Jewish journalism in America.

(The Forward's story was posted during – or just moments before – the conference and the Forward had already interviewed the union representatives and the USDA. In other words, my criticism does not extend to the Forward.)

The USDA material attached below shows that Rubashkin was caught on at least two occasions slaughtering animals over 30 months of age without properly tagging them. Animals over 30 months of age are more likely to have BSE (Mad Cow Disease). Their carcasses are handled differently than younger cattle, and all spinal and brain matter is removed and disposed of. If animals are improperly tagged or not tagged, the precautionary measures to prevent the spread of BSE are not taken.

Inspectors cannot be in all places at all times. If these BSE violations were caught twice in such a short time, it is probable that many other BSE violations took place but were not caught by USDA FSIS inspectors.

This means you and your family may have eaten meat that was not handled in a manner meant to prevent the spread of BSE.

The same holds true for meat contaminated with fecal and bile matter and foreign objects.

A spokesman for the USDA's FSIS says the plant is now "in compliance."

All I can tell you is the front line inspectors would love to do more to stop this type of dangerous and negligent behavior from plant owners like Rubashkin. Unfortunately, their political-level bosses at the Bush USDA don't seem see it that way. Imagine Alberto Gonzales watching over the safety of your food supply when the purveyors of that supply are his friends and the friends of the President.

The Jerusalem Post has a report on the new documentary film Code Name Silence, made by Ethiopian journalist and filmmaker Danny Adino Abebe. The film documents abuses committed by a minority of Ethiopian Jewish Mossad operatives during Operation Moses:

…"[During that time] we in the Ethiopian community had our heroes; they were known as the Committee and they were our saviors," comments Abebe in the 50-minute film's introduction.

Made up of Ethiopian Jews handpicked by the Mossad, the Committee's task was to distribute food, medicine and money to those waiting in the camps and facilitate their emigration. Many of the Committee members risked their lives to ensure that the 14,000 or so Jews made it to the Promised Land, but as Abebe reveals through first-hand testimonies, several of the Committee's members abused their powerful positions, raping women and refusing to hand over the resources at their disposal.…

I knew in 1984 about some of these abuses and about two specific individual abusers, but I did not know the full extent of the problem. Hopefully this film will bring the prosecution of those who raped and stole their way through Operation Moses.

USDA documents to be released later today by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union are said to show a pattern of food safety issues including recalled products, mad-cow-related safety concerns and repeated fecal and bile contamination at the plant that produces Aaron's Best, Aaron's Choice, European Glatt, Iowa Best Beef, Nevel, Shor Harbor, Rubashkin's, Supreme Kosher, and
David's.

That's right, folks. Rubashkin and Agriprocessors – owned by Chabad followers and the county's largest producer of glatt kosher meat – are back in the news again.

The UFCW is currently trying to unionize Agriprocessors, and that should be taken into account when judging this story.

But, if the documents to be released later today support the assertions made by the UFCW, kosher consumers will have many more valid reasons to demand different, non-Rubashkin-controlled sources of kosher meat.

August 07, 2007

Hilltop Youth and a few haredi supporters rioted when police attempted to evacuate them from dwellings in the Hebron marketplace where the Hilltop Youth and supporters had been squatting illegally.

Watch this video of the evacuation. See the settlers wearing keffiyot to mask their faces. See the rocks in their hands. Note that the police use little force, have women officers evacuate women, and remain largely calm in the face of attacks with rocks and other weapons. Also note this from Hillel Weiss, a Bar Ilan professor and Sanhedrin member:

[Speaking to a police commander, as made clear in the video:] "May your mother be bereaved, your wife be widowed, your children be orphaned and may you be struck down in the next war and any memory of you be erased," Weiss said.

"The [Israeli] policemen are worse than the Germans. You don't expect anything from Germans, but the policemen here lost all trace of humanity and are capable of anything.

Weiss made this statement unmolested, both to the police commander and later, when he repeated it for Ynet, on video, a few feet from the evacuation. The Germans would have simply shot him dead. The Israeli police allowed him to speak, did not molest him and did not arrest him.

Weiss and other members of the so-called Sanhedrin have made similar hatelful statements in the past. To my knowledge, the Sanhedrin's president, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, has never distanced himself or the Samhedrin from these specific remarks.

The first two people removed from the dwelling at the beginning of the video appear to be haredim; the second may be a Chabadnik.

What is the earliest reference to either the term shochet or to laws of ritual slaughter? In other words, what is the farthest back in time we can trace the laws of ritual slaughter? I'm looking for specific, stated references (i.e., "So and so can not serve as a shochet because…" or "The knife must made sharp. Any nick or imperfection …") not textual hints. And this is not a quiz – I don't know the answer myself. Readers?

One day Rabbi Rene-Samuel Sirat was invited to attend a lecture on the Holocaust, held in the amphitheater of the Sorbonne University in Paris. The speaker, a member of the Academie Francaise, moved the audience when he spoke of a Jewish girl who missed out on a golden opportunity to escape a concentration camp to remain near her parents. Eventually, she was sent to her death along with them.

"Next to me sat [Roman Catholic] Cardinal Lustiger," the former chief rabbi of France recalled. "I glanced at his face and saw tears running down his cheeks. At that moment I knew he was remembering his mother, who suffered a similar fate at the Auschwitz death camp." [Lustiger was born Jewish.]

On more than one occasion, Sirat met the cardinal entering Paris' main synagogue. "He would come to say kaddish for his mother," he said.…

“I was born Jewish,
and so I remain, even if that is unacceptable for many. For me, the
vocation of Israel is bringing light to the goyim. That is my hope, and
I believe that Christianity is the means for achieving it.”…

In 1995, while he was visiting Israel, Yisrael Meir Lau, the
Ashkenazic chief rabbi and a concentration camp survivor, said Cardinal
Lustiger had “betrayed his people and his faith during the most
difficult and darkest of periods” in the 1940s. The rabbi dismissed the
assertion that the cardinal had remained a Jew.

In response, the cardinal said: “To say that I am no longer a Jew is
like denying my father and mother, my grandfathers and grandmothers. I
am as Jewish as all the other members of my family who were butchered
in Auschwitz or in the other camps.”

He stepped down as archbishop in 2005, but with the pope’s death
that year, the cardinal was frequently mentioned as a potential
successor.

He countered such speculation with characteristic humor. Asked by a
Jewish friend over dinner whether he thought he might become pope, the
cardinal responded in French-accented Yiddish, “From your mouth to
God’s ear.”

August 06, 2007

An 8-year-old Israeli boy spent six hours floating in the Dead Sea alone at night after his father left him there by accident during a family trip, police said Sunday.

They said they would not press charges against the errant parent.…

Rescue workers said the boy, Shneur Zalman Friedman, from Jerusalem, was in the sea with his father and two brothers on Thursday evening when currents swept him away from shore, without anyone else noticing.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the family was part of a large group visiting a beach reserved for ultra-Orthodox Jewish men — who do not bathe in the presence of women — away from main public areas.

His father left the water with other members of the group and only noticed the boy was missing as darkness fell, Rosenfeld said.

A major search by police helicopters and volunteers in motorboats finally found Shneur about 2 miles from the shore early Friday after six hours in the strong-smelling, corrosive water…

Okay, I know it's unfair. Anyone could forget their own 8-year-old child in a large inland sea. You don't have to be haredi to do that …

…A group of scholars headed by author Elie Wiesel has now asked the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington to put greater emphasis on the activity of the "Bergson Group" in rescuing Jews in Europe. And a conference in [Hillel] Kook's [a.k.a. Peter Bergson] memory was held in New York.

A member of the Irgun pre-state underground organization, Kook tried to establish a Jewish army in the United States in order to take part in the war against the Nazis. When reports of the extermination of the Jews began to arrive, he organized marches and meetings, published advertisements, and tried to collar senators in an effort to force the Roosevelt administration to do more to rescue the Jews. He loathed the Jewish establishment for its fawning obedience, and its leaders viewed him as a publicity-seeking troublemaker and were concerned that his hyperactivity would get them into trouble for displaying "dual loyalty."

The argument over who was right is now splitting historians, more or less along the line that also divides them on the question of whether the Jewish public leadership in Palestine could have done more to rescue the Jews.

Kook, the nephew of the chief rabbi of Palestine, espoused a "Hebrew, quasi-Canaanite" national outlook, as an alternative to Zionist Jewish thought. He was in favor of separating religion and state, and for the participation of Arabs in the government.…

[I]n the 1940s he helped advance the struggle for equal rights of the blacks in [the United States], as did many Jews there. That is a well-known story. What is less well known is that some of the leaders of the black communities in the United States also supported him and his struggle to rescue the Jews of Europe.

Kook's American biographer, Raphael Medoff, recently gave a talk on the assistance Kook received from a number of black celebrities. They signed his petitions, attended his meetings and also helped him raise money. That was far from self-evident: They had troubles of their own. Among Kook's supporters was one of the best-known and most admired of American blacks: the legendary singer Paul Robeson. According to Medoff's account, it appears that more blacks than Jews backed Peter Bergson.

It was an alliance of the persecuted. In the spring of 1947, an ardently pro-Zionist play called "A Flag is Born," by Ben Hecht - who also supported the effort to compel the Roosevelt administration to do more to rescue Jews - was about to be staged in Baltimore. At the time, blacks could only get tickets for the balcony. The Bergson Group threatened a scandal, the theater's management gave in, and black invitees sat in the main hall for the first time in the theater's history.…

Black Americans were more supportive of Holocaust rescue than many Jews – including the 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe, Joseph Isaac Schneersohn, whose record on Zionism, Holocaust rescue and shtadlanut was simply abysmal.

…Feldman now says of the photo, “In life you can never be sure, and the
truth is I never knew any of this until I saw the contact sheets, about
two weeks ago. All I knew when I had the experience described in the
article is that [Eisenberg] took a bunch of group shots and then, sure
enough, I wasn’t in” the newsletter photo.

“I felt that sense of being reminded of something I already knew,” that
his future with a non-Jewish wife would meet limited acceptance.

Asked why he didn’t rewrite the story to reflect the newly discovered
photo, Feldman responded: “When I first wrote it I was doing it from
memory. When [the photographer] turned up the contact sheet there was
no contradiction at all, as far as I could tell. They had several
photos to choose from and they chose one that I wasn’t in. There’s no
question that one could offer other explanations for what happened,”
other than that it was intentional. “It’s not as if [the photo] was an
outlying event. It fit right in with the other things [refusing to
print his lifecycle notices]. This was a memoir of my experience.”

Eisenberg, who is now based in New York, said the Times “paid my way to
go back to [his Boston studio] and find the negative. They wanted to
run the [reunion] picture to illustrate” Feldman’s claim of being
discriminated against because of his relationship with a non-Jew.
Eisenberg returned with the photo but the Times opted not to publish
it, he said, when it became obvious that there was no cropping but
simply an overflowing of reunion participants beyond the camera’s range.

“It’s not like they could show that the only two people not in the picture were Noah and his girlfriend,” said Eisenberg.

The photographer, also a Maimonides alumnus, said that after the 1998
reunion he ran into Feldman at a “Conservadox temple” when the
conversation took place that Feldman recounts in the Times: Eisenberg
told Feldman, “don’t blame me,” with Feldman assuming he was referring
to the yeshiva’s cropping because of his girlfriend.

Eisenberg now says he wasn’t thinking of Feldman’s girlfriend, only the
photo’s unwieldy circumstance. “I would have said the same thing” to
any one of “16 other people” who didn’t appear in the final picture.…

Josh Wolff, executive director of Maimonides, told The Jewish Week… that the school’s alumni updates had indeed
rejected Feldman’s subsequent submission of his life-cycle events once
it became known that Feldman eventually married his girlfriend, who did
not convert, making his children non-Jewish according to traditional
Jewish law.

On behalf of the leadership and constituency of the Orthodox Union, we
write to express our outrage at the decision by the Times Magazine
editors to publish Mr. Feldman's slanderous essay when... it became
known to the author and to the editors - in advance of publication -
that Mr. Feldman's assertion of his being deliberately cropped out of a
photograph of his day school reunion - the departure point and
narrative framing for his essay - was false.…

A number of years ago, I went to my 10th high-school reunion, in the backyard of the one classmate whose parents had a pool. Lots of my classmates were there. Almost all were married, and many already had kids. This was not as unusual as it might seem, since I went to a yeshiva day school, and nearly everyone remained Orthodox. I brought my girlfriend. At the end, we all crowded into a big group photo, shot by the school photographer, who had taken our pictures from first grade through graduation. When the alumni newsletter came around a few months later, I happened to notice the photo. I looked, then looked again. My girlfriend and I were nowhere to be found.

I didn’t want to seem paranoid, especially in front of my girlfriend, to whom I was by that time engaged. So I called my oldest school friend, who appeared in the photo, and asked for her explanation. “You’re kidding, right?” she said. My fiancée was Korean-American. Her presence implied the prospect of something that from the standpoint of Orthodox Jewish law could not be recognized: marriage to someone who was not Jewish. That hint was reason enough to keep us out.

Not long after, I bumped into the photographer, in synagogue, on Yom Kippur. When I walked over to him, his pained expression told me what I already knew. “It wasn’t me,” he said. I believed him.…

What do we have? This:

The OU's claim that Feldman wrote that he and his girlfriend had been "deliberately cropped out" of the photo is false. All Feldman does is express shock at not appearing in the printed photograph. He relies on a friend's assessment for what happened and, even then, no one asserts the image was cropped or photoshopped. Removing Feldman from the final picture could have been done by cropping or by relying on a photograph framed by the photographer to exclude him. (And, believe me, the photographer must have been very careful to make sure he had shots of the group that left out Feldman. Wedding and Jewish event photographers are quite skilled at getting shots that leave out the crazy uncle or the hated in-laws, all without letting the excluded realize they have been "out-framed.")

Further, Josh Wolf's statement could be read to say that before Feldman actually married his non-Jewish bed partner, Maimonides would have had no objection to them appearing together in the alumni publication. This is clearly false. The Jewish Week should have asked Wolf directly: "Did Maimonides have any objection to Feldman and his bed partner appearing together in the alumni publication? Would it allow other inter-dating couples to appear together in a school publication?" If the answer is, as I suspect, that Maimonides would not print such a photograph or mention an out-dating relationship, then no one – not the OU, not Maimonides – have a valid complaint against the Times.

The idea that several pictures could have been taken is not broached by Feldman. If Feldman had specifically claimed that the printed picture was cropped, this would be an issue. But Feldman did not directly claim this, although his piece could be read that way.

In other words, to say that there were 10 photos, five with Feldman and five without, say, and the school chose one of the five without, does not weaken his claim, especially when that claim is combined with his other claim, that the school refuses to print his life cycle notices. The school admits the latter claim is true.

The only assertion that the Times did not use the photo because "it became obvious that there was no cropping" comes from the photographer, who himself admits to saying exactly what Feldman has him saying regarding the original picture.In other words, the photographer, who is not a disinterested or impartial witness, cannot be relied on for his self-interested assessment of why the Times did not use the photo.

More telling, the Jewish Week does not confirm the photographer's statement with the Times and does not ask the photographer how he knows the motivation of the Times' editors. Is this speculation on his part? Or did the editors tell him that, because Feldman was not cropped out, we won't run the photograph? The Jewish Week's piece does not tell us.

Therefore, nothing in this incident warrants Feldman's firing or even an apology from the Times.

The OU's further claims about Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir fail to note that Goldstein, even though heavily influenced by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, as was Amir, gained that influence in the middle of a National Religious-Modern Orthodox community that was accepting and supportive of Kahane's views. Amir – who studied full time at Bar Illan University – was influenced by other Bar Illan students. However, I think it unfair to blaim the institution for that influence. Even so, to make the claim that Feldman made, that there are many teachings within mainstream Jewish Orthodoxy – even Modern Orthodoxy – that are profoundly anti-gentile, bigoted and hateful is not wrong. The claim is supported by ample evidence.

In other words, the OU does not really have a leg to stand on.

None of this alters my view that Feldman's complaints of mistreatment at the hands of his old MO day school are foolish and infantile.

Orthodoxy, for better or for worse, publicly, privately and in every other way imaginable rejects out-marriage. This could not have been news to Feldman, and his surprise at being treated differently than his in-married peers I find not credible. Feldman clearly deceived himself long before he set out to deceive anyone else.

avrohom, a Chabad follower and frequent (and rude) commenter on this blog, continues to insist the 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe was a blameless tzaddik, a fount of perfection who never erred and who certainly never opposed Holocaust rescue.

…[T]he Rebbe [Joseph Isaac Schneersohn] of course wanted to escape Europe and
had his movement employ every means, even approaching the Secretary of
State, to get him out, but when he was here in the US, he did not
approach those very same people to help rescue those who had to remain
in Europe. However, he did approach those people in the government to
rescue his library, which he did get out in 1941. Are books more
important than people? Some of the books were secular like Dante's
Inferno and books on Communism. This is a sad part of the history of
the Rebbe. Also he started [publicly] condemning people who were organizing
amazing rescue efforts like rabbis Kotler and Kalmanowitz of the
Vad-Haatzala.

He claimed they and Reform and Kofrim Jews were causing the
Holocaust with their non-Kosher ways. Yet, we see that Kotler and
Kalmanowitz helped rescue up to 100,000 people with the War Refugee
Board. The Rebbe felt they were unnecessarily compromising their
religious integrity by meeting with politicians on the Sabbath and
secular and reform leaders. So the Rebbe made mistakes and according to
Chancellor or Yeshiva University, Norman Lamm, he committed blasphemy
by claiming God was punishing the Jews for their sins with the
Holocaust. He claims this is a desecration of God's name (Menachem
Mendel Schneerson also said that saying such a thing is a desecration
of God's name without mentioning his father-in-law). These facts and
many more show how much Chabad does to ignore unpleasant facts about
their history. They just claim that when people write such things, they
are jealous of their movement, do not understand their people or on a
political campaign to smear them. Very weak arguments and signs of
inferiority complexes. So basically this story shows that instead of
pointing fingers, we need to act and make a difference. Small minds
blame others; big ones blame themselves and then seek out action to
make the situation better.

What people wanted was a hero of the Jewish people fighting for their
rights. Instead, the Rebbe just thought of himself and his movement and
condemned others. He was not helping the problem, but creating more. He
should have worked with Kotler and Kalmanowitz, or at least have tried
to, instead of [publicly] condemning them and a host of others.

…Now to Kotler and Kalmanowitz--They took help from everywhere they
could. Kotler was appalled by the Rebbe's focus on the Messiah and his
spiritual campaign, especially throughout 1942-1943 when all energy
should have been focused on rescuing lives. So, Kotler and Kalmanowitz
would have gladly received help from the Rebbe, but such help never
came from the Rebbe. He only condemned them for their un-kosher ways.
For the record, I wanted to find the Rebbe acting like Kotler and
Kalmanowitz. That would have been a beautiful conclusion to the story.
Rabbi Weisfogel, who was Kalmanowitz's assistant, said of the Rebbe "He
was a moral failure at this time to condemn us and the Jewish people as
a whole for the Holocaust when he in turn did hardly anything except
rescue his books and few [close] students' lives."

For the record, if I was a business man, as many Lubavitchers
encouraged me to be, I would not have mentioned his dealings in the US
after his rescue. As one Lubavitcher at 770 told me "If you do this,
you will get thousands of dollars and go all over the Chabad world and
give talks." Yes, I said, but that is not the truth. To this, he was
silent.

And we also have one entire chapter of his book, Rescued From The Reich, that deals with the 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe's behavior once he reached America. (This is the part of the book Rigg meant when he wrote, "if I was a business man, as many Lubavitchers
encouraged me to be, I would not have mentioned his dealings in the US
after his rescue.") That behavior included telling people, both through his 'newspaper,' HaKriah v'HaKedushah, and through other writings that those people collecting money on Shabbos to save lives were wrong, were delaying the "redemption," were causing more Jews to die, etc. Those "people" doing that on Shabbos were the rabbis and laypeople of the Va'ad Hatzalah, and they rescued thousands of Jews.

The 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe started his own "Pidyon Shvuyim Fund" to compete with the Va'ad Hatzalah. What did Joseph Isaac Schneerson do with the money he raised? A large chunk of it went to open his Brooklyn yeshiva. Yes, that is correct – the 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe took money meant for rescue, meant to save Jews from the Holocaust, and instead opened a Brooklyn yeshiva with it.

And, if that is not enough, the 'Grand Rabbi' of Lubavitch started a 'moshiach campaign.' Why? Because he believed only the coming of the messiah would end the Holocaust and all efforts on the ground – like those of the Va'ad Hatzalah – would be futile.

The Va'ad Hatzalah's efforts led to the creation of the War Refugee Board. So, along with the thousands saved directly by the Va'ad Hatzalah, another 100,000 to 200,000 Jews were saved indirectly through the War Refugee Board. And, yes, the great 'tzaddik' of Lubavitch thought the War Refugee Board was a futile endeavor, as well.

And let us not forget that the great 'tzaddik' of Lubavitch was also an ardent anti-Zionist who urged Jews to stay in Europe. Here is a copy of the 5th Lubavitcher Rebbe's anti-Zionist letter circulated throughout Europe. His son, the future 6th rebbe, was head of the Lubavitch Yeshiva at that time. He fully endorsed his father's anti-Zionism and issued anti-Zionist tracts of his own. More on those sometime in the not too distant future.

When I spoke with Barry Gourary [the only grandchild of the 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe; the teenage Barry was rescued together with his grandfather, grandmother and his parents in the rescue described in Rigg's book] three months ago, I asked him about the
Holocaust and his grandfather and father's reaction to it. Barry
thought both did eveything possible to rescue Jews, although he had no
proof or information to back up that belief. He told me his father
backed Rebbe Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn's moshiach campaign – done in instead of rescue – because "my father was a chassid of my grandfather."

Barry was very precise in his answers: "I do not know." "I do
not remember." "I do not think so." Or specific answers with specific details. His answers
seemed completely credible and were given freely.

Sadly, the fact that his belief that
the RAYATZ, etc. did everything they could to rescue Jews was nothing
more than a belief – he had no facts, no documents, not even any stories to
support it – says volumes about the failings of Lubavitch leadership
during WW2.

One can also see that Chabad had no significant presence at the now-famous "Rabbis' March" on Washington. No senior Lubavitch rabbi attended. The march – created by Hillel Kook [a.k.a. Peter Bergson] and promoted by the Va'ad Hatzalah and Agudas HaRabbonim – brought the formation of the War Refugee Board which saved 200,000 Jews during the last years of the Holocaust.

August 03, 2007

On July 30, PETA sent a letter, a video and still photographs to Dr. Thomas Friedan, NYC's commissioner of health. PETA is concerned about the handling of chickens during the kapporot ritual held every fall during the week before Yom Kippur. Of special concern is the large kapparot factory set up in Crown Heights.

The letter was supposed to remain private. Someone of Friedan's staff or the staff's of the cc'd office holders leaked the letter to the rabbis, who tipped VIN. (A quick look at the cc'd office holders will show you that Brooklyn's DA, Charles Hynes, received the letter, the video and the photographs. Hynes runs an especially porous office, although the leak could have come from any of the recipients, especially from Rabbi Weiss, head of Kosher Law Enforcement for the city.)

PETA alleges unsanitary conditions, violations of health and other regulations and poor animal handling – some of which violates the law.

I watched the video (it was just put up online less than 2 hours ago. You can view it here.) I think PETA's strongest case is made regarding the unsanitary conditions and violations of local and state law. The handling of the animals by the people using them for kapporot largely seems fine to me. But the handling of the animals before and after kapporot by the staff leaves much to be desired.

PETA notes animals are often left for days without food or water, and rejected animals are simply left caged to die of dehydration.

VosIzNeais, the Satmar news blog known mostly for ripping off hundreds of stories from newspapers and publishing them without attribution or links, was given the story by Brooklyn rabbis. VIN implies incorrectly that PETA wants to force Jews to replace kapport done with live chickens with kapporot done with money. But the letter, reprinted in full after the jump below, does not make this claim. Then VIN reports:

Rabbanim of all sects are greatly alarmed and have called for an emergency, mass asifah for this upcoming week.

To make sure the masses are inflamed, the "rabbonim" are also linking this to Dr. Friedan's attempt to regulatemetzitza b'peh, the oral-to-genital-suction done by the mohel on the baby's open circumcision wound.

The mass demonstration will no doubt ensure the unnecessary cruelty and health violations of all types continue unabated.

…You refer in anger to the Talmudic view on whether a Jewish doctor
may violate the Sabbath laws in order to save the life of a non-Jew.
You are critical of the Sages of the Talmud who permitted such
violations of laws of the Sabbath because of concern for maintaining
peaceful relations between the Jewish and non-Jewish communities. You
suggest that, on the one hand, it is an “instance of laudable
universalism,” but, on the other, it is “an example of outrageously
particularist religious thinking.”

Surely you,
as a distinguished academic lawyer, must have come across instances in
which a precedent that was once valid has, in the course of time,
proved morally objectionable, as a result of which it was amended, so
that the law remains “on the books” as a juridical foundation, while it
becomes effectively inoperative through legal analysis and moral
argument. Why, then, can you not be as generous to Jewish law, and
appreciate that certain biblical laws are unenforceable in practical
terms, because all legal systems — including Jewish law — do not simply
dump their axiomatic bases but develop them. Why not admire scholars of
Jewish law who use various legal technicalities to preserve the text of
the original law in its essence, and yet make sure that appropriate
changes would be made in accordance with new moral sensitivities? Plato
— as well as Maimonides — taught us that every law must leave some who
are thereby disadvantaged, that it is in the nature of law to serve the
community even when individuals are injured. We then must seek ways to
ameliorate the situation as best we can. This is a legitimate way for
the Talmudic and post-Talmudic rabbis to protect the sacred Shabbat
laws, and by appropriate halachic legislation enable us to live without
violating our moral conscience.

Let me clarify
my stand, as an Orthodox rabbi, on the issue you raised: It is strictly
forbidden by the Halacha to deny a non-Jew whatever is necessary to
save his or her life. There must be no discrimination whatsoever. Every
human being is created in the Image of God and has a right to life and
health. “The Lord is good to all and His tender mercies are over all
His works” (Psalm 145).

Because the issue is
subtle and highly sensitive, do you not think that it would have been
more responsible of you either not to mention an issue which for
centuries has inflamed antisemitic vindictiveness and exacerbated
irritation for those Jews ignorant of the method and subtleties of the
law, especially since such subtleties are beyond the reader not trained
in legal theory? But if you are compelled to write about it, would it
have been a violation of some professional code to give precedence and
preference to the universalist bias of the halachic tradition?

But
you took the easy way out, and thereby succeeded in holding up the
Torah, the Talmud, the rabbis and especially Modern Orthodox Judaism to
public ridicule, making the whole Talmudic enterprise look bigoted and
racist.…

In my opinion, it is fitting to put an end to the hatred of the religions for each other. More than Christianity hates Judaism, Judaism hates Christianity. There is a dispute if stealing from Gentiles is forbidden from the Torah, everyone holds that deceiving a Gentile and canceling his debt is permitted, one is not to return a lost object to a Gentile, according to R. Tam intercourse with a Gentile does not render a woman forbidden to her husband, their issue is like the issue [of horses]... We must solemnly and formally declare that in our day this does not apply. Meiri wrote as such, but the teachers and ramim whisper in the ears of the students that all this was written because of the censor.

So, Rabbi Lamm gets a point for "solemnly and formally declar[ing] that in our day th[ese discriminatory laws do] not apply." Of course, he loses that point by pretending that the legal fiction he endorses is the only and correct way to see the halakha. The fact is, most of the haredi world does not understand it that way. They reflect ed's position more than Rabbi Lamm's. Rabbi Lamm knows this. But he has made his choice – clearly, it is more important to Rabbi Lamm to make Orthodoxy look good than it is to tell the truth and, if that deception further estranges Noah Feldman and others – so be it.

This is a shame. Rabbi Lamm made very good points regarding Feldman's bizarre expectation that Modern Orthodoxy would somehow approve of his marriage to a non-Jew. But he had to cross the line, he had to intentionally deceive.

Rabbi Lamm includes this letter he says he received from Daniel, a recent YU graduate:

Like most Yeshiva University graduates, I interact on
a daily basis with gentiles for most of my day. My Orthodox Jewish
identity has never become an issue or conflict. However, following last
week’s New York Times article by Noah Feldman… I have frequently been
getting questions like, ‘Is it true that according to your law you
wouldn’t save my life on the Sabbath’ or, ‘Do you really believe that
Jewish life is more important than gentile life?’ How does a young
Modern Orthodox professional answer these questions in a respectful and
diplomatic way so as not to demonize others and at the same time be
true to his faith?

What that tells me is that Daniel also understands the law the way Feldman does – but he does not know haw to spin the law to placate his non-Jewish co-workers while at the same time remaining true to the law. This supports Noah Feldman's position.

More and more, I see secularism as the only solution to Judaism's
problems. Our rabbis are deceitful. Many (not including Rabbi Lamm, thank God) are open thieves. While it is
possible to separate God from Orthodox Judaism, it is impossible to
separate rabbis from Orthodox Judaism (or any other Judaism, for that matter)– and that is our greatest
problem.

Failed messiah was established and run in 2004 by Mr. Shmarya (Scott)Rosenberg. The site was acquired by Diversified Holdings, Feb 2016. .We thank Mr. Rosenberg for his efforts on behalf of the Jewish Community.

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